An article describing the logistical challenges of exporting tobacco from southern Africa.

1. coverstory
OUT OF
AFRICA
Africa’s inefficiencies make exporting leaf tobacco
more difficult than it should be.
By Taco Tuinstra
G
uy Harvey, CEO of Transcom Sharaf, likes to plan Transcom Sharaf’s most experienced driver.
ahead. But that’s easier said than done when you’re At times, the best option is driving next to the pavement.
running a transportation company in southern Africa. But that too must be done with care. More than a decade
Crumbling roads, corruption, fuel theft and endless red tape after Mozambique’s civil war, many areas remain infested
make the trucking business here unpredictable, to say the with landmines, and the danger zones are marked only
least. To succeed, you need not only a plan B, but also a vaguely by red-and-white pieces of plastic tape. Apparently,
plan C, D and E. Flexibility—along with a healthy sense of unexploded ordinance is so common that local children sing
humor—is the key to survival. a countdown song about a baboon family that gradually gets
In June, Tobacco Reporter hitched a ride on a tractor smaller as it loses its members to landmines.
trailer to learn what it takes to get a load of African tobacco Sticking close to the asphalt—or what’s left of it—
to port. Nkalamba makes sure they won’t be singing about hapless
truckers next.
The asphalt ahead looks as if it’s been hit by a cluster We are overtaken by a Toyota Landcruiser and,
bomb. Some of the craters are deep enough to bathe a small embarrassingly, a bicycle. But with 20 tons of precious
child in, and Alex Nkalamba slows his truck to a crawl. tobacco in tow, we must continue our slow-motion slalom.
Bouncing violently in his seat, he navigates around the The speedometer seldom exceeds 10 km (6 miles) per hour.
potholes, sometimes driving around them and sometimes Two children are “fixing” the road by throwing sand in
going straight through. “If I approach a hole from the wrong the potholes. Nkalamba hands them some money but then
angle, I could tip the truck,” explains Nkalamba, who is grumbles that they should be in school.
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2. After three and a half hours of precarious navigation, the the cost of transportation also affects leaf tobacco, a major
road starts improving, and we continue our two-day journey African export.
from Lilongwe, Malawi, to the port of Beira in Mozambique. Back in Lilongwe, Harvey shows around a visitor in
We’ve driven a mere 75 kilometers. Transcom Sharaf’s workshop. The place is littered with
tattered tires, bent axles, broken shocks and various parts
Non-value-added cost that are harder to identify for the mechanically challenged.
The drive from Changara to Gulu “When we ordered spring bushes, the U.S. manufacturer
provides a small, if vivid, illustration could not understand why we needed so many of them,”
of what tobacco transporters are up recalls Harvey, holding up a piece of metal encased in
against in Africa. Poor infrastructure shredded rubber. The only time American truck operators
not only increases travel times, it also might need to replace this part is in case of serious accident.
takes a toll on hardware, adding costs In Africa, by contrast, replacing spring bushes is part of
for everybody in the supply chain. regular maintenance.
A recent study by the World Bank revealed that the high Because most spares are unavailable locally, they must be
price of moving goods in sub-Saharan Africa reduces profits, shipped in from Europe, the United States or other countries.
slows economic growth and raises prices for consumers. All of Transcom Sharaf’s tires come from Malaysia, for
The bank estimates that landlocked countries in southern example. But imports mean additional shipping expenses,
Africa lose between 1 and 1.5 percentage points of economic customs duties and stock-keeping. Because there is no
growth each year due to high transport costs. Needless to say, support infrastructure in Africa, transportation companies
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3. here must maintain far greater inventories than do their
counterparts in the developed world.
Border delays
But bad roads are not the only concern
keeping African transportation
executives awake at night. An even
greater challenge facing trucking
companies, according to the World
Bank study, is delays at border
crossings.
It takes about 90 minutes for Nkalamba’s paperwork to clear
at the Dedza border between Malawi and Mozambique—and
Dedza is probably one of the region’s more efficient crossings.
Later, we catch up with another Transcom Sharaf driver who
has just returned from Johannesburg, South Africa. He spent
four days waiting at the Zimbabwean border. In theory, the
journey from Johannesburg to Lilongwe can be completed in
72 hours. Add in the hours spent waiting at border crossings,
however, and the travel time increases to almost a week.
The World Bank estimates that delays at border crossings
account for a whopping 30 percent to 40 percent of
transport time in sub-Saharan Africa. The crossings at Beit
Bridge (between Zimbabwe and South Africa) and Chirundu
(Zimbabwe and Zambia) are particularly notorious, but
they pale in comparison with the Lubumbashi border post
between Zambia and Congo, which “easily” takes seven days
to cross. The bank calculates that, if border crossing delays
Africa’s crumbling infrastructure increases travel times and
were cleared, truck utilization could be increased by 30,000
adds cost.
km to 40,000 km per year.
The border holdups are related to another nuisance among the region’s worst extortionists.
that adds cost but no value—informal payments. The It’s easy to see why. With hyperinflation outstripping
level of corruption appears to have an inverse relationship pay increases—the Reserve Bank introduced a z$5 billion
with poverty. Before Zimbabwe started to self-destruct, banknote this summer—Zimbabweans have been forced to
in the late 1990s, truck drivers had little to fear from supplement their incomes in whatever way they can. Those
that country’s police. Today, Zimbabwean officers are with access to foreign currency use their privilege to speculate
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4. on the black market, while those in uniform take advantage
of their position to demand bribes—or write phony tickets.
Nkalamba’s colleague recalls how Zimbabwean
officials once fined him us$60 for being overloaded.
But the scales in Mozambique, and later in Malawi,
showed his truck’s weight was well below the legal limits.
He was still lucky, because the fines for overloading
have recently escalated to absurd levels in Zimbabwe.
Malawi’s Road Transport Operators Association has
reported fines as high as us$93,000 for overloading in
Zimbabwe—enough to put a small- to mid-sized trucking
company out of business.
Congo, another poverty-stricken country, can be an
expensive destination too. Nkalamba says that when a
Congolese police officer asks for your driver’s license,
you’d better show it from behind the windshield. “If you
hand it to him, he will stick it in his shirt pocket and
charge you us$100 to get it back.”
The situation in Malawi and Mozambique, by contrast,
is improving along with the economies of those countries.
We encounter our first police stop at the outskirts of
Lilongwe, but the officer waves us through, perhaps
because he carries no speed gun. The night before, a
fellow motorist told us that the speed guns that were
donated to the Malawi police force several years ago
have all mysteriously stopped functioning. No matter
how slowly you drive, they now consistently return a
reading of 90 km per hour. What exactly the speed limit
is remains open to interpretation. We don’t encounter a
single sign during our 1,100 km journey to Beira.
But overall, Malawi police seem relaxed, and those
in Mozambique have gotten much better as the country
regains its footing. In the 1990s, shortly after the
civil war, the police in Mozambique were notorious
for shaking down travelers, charging them with bogus
offenses such as “driving with sunglasses.”
In an attempt to improve the country’s image and
make it a more attractive destination for investors, the
Punishing roads also take a toll on hardware. Truck parts
government has cracked down on corruption. Also, as
that last a lifetime in Europe or the United States must be
Mozambique’s peace endures, a sense of normalcy has
returned, and government officials appear to take their frequently replaced as part of regular maintenance in Africa.
responsibilities more seriously. Perhaps most significantly,
Facilitation fees
officers’ salaries are said to have increased.
We are stopped only once in Mozambique. Ignoring But even as the Mozambican police
Nkalamba’s unfastened seatbelt, the officer takes a quick force is less corrupt than it was in
look in the cabin to ensure there are no unauthorized the past, trucking in Africa still
passengers. Hitchhiking is a way of life in Africa, where requires many “facilitation fees.”
distances are long and few people own vehicles. Many Prior to entering the port of Beira,
truck drivers make money on the side by doubling as a truck drivers must clear their paper-
bus service, but trucking companies try hard to discourage work at a decrepit customs building
the practice—not only because it is against the law, but outside the gate. Some 20 young men are hanging around
also because they are liable for passenger injuries in the with no obvious purpose. We meet the gaze of one of them,
event of an accident. What’s more, carrying passengers and he responds with a hand gesture that seems to be the
stresses the equipment beyond its capacity; truck cabins local equivalent of a raised middle finger. As Nkalamba
are designed to hold two or three people, not 12. enters the customs building, he slips the apparent ring-
Satisfied that nobody is hiding under the blankets, the leader a few banknotes—the price of trouble-free passage.
officer sends us on our way. Nkalamba visibly relaxes, “So they don’t break my mirrors or steal my cell phone,”
memories of the bad old days still fresh in his mind. he says.
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5. stops to inspect the damage,” says Nkalamba.
Surprisingly, drivers’ personal belongings are often more
desired by robbers than the cargo they carry. Processed
leaf tobacco, for example, is considered an unattractive
target, because there are few ready buyers. Fertilizer, by
contrast, comes in conveniently sized bags and can easily be
sold to small-scale farmers, of which there are many in the
region. Break bulk is most susceptible to theft, but thieves
target containers also. “They’ll just use chain cutters,” says
Nkalamba.
To deter theft, Transcom Sharaf covers its break bulk in
nets. “The system is not invincible, but if a thief has a choice
between our covered load and someone else’s uncovered load,
hopefully he will target the uncovered truck,” says Harvey.
Diesel
In addition to corruption
and excessive border delays,
transportation companies
operating in Africa incur another
expense that their counterparts
in Europe and the United States
seldom have to account for—fuel
theft by drivers. It’s an easy way for truckers to supplement
their incomes. With petrol stations few and far between
in Africa, there are plenty of potential buyers. At regular
intervals, we encounter villagers waving jerry cans alongside
the road, soliciting a sale.
We also witness a truck driver sucking a hose protruding
from his parked truck’s fuel tank. Once a vacuum has been
created, he places the hose into a portable drum and the diesel
automatically flows from one owner to the next.
Fuel theft is a big business in southern Africa. While the The quantities sold per occasion are relatively small—the
individual transactions are small, the numbers add up quickly, disappearance of 20 liters from a 1,000-liter gas tank will
and trucking companies lose hundreds of thousands of dollars go unnoticed, and drivers can conceal the “loss” by driving
economically—by coasting in neutral when traveling downhill,
annually.
for example. But the liters and dollars add up quickly when you
In the port, money changes hands again. First, to persuade take into account the number of drivers and trips. Transcom
the operator of a reach-stacker (a machine resembling a giant Sharaf has more than 150 trucks in its fleet. In a back-of-the-
forklift) to unload our container now—instead of whenever envelope calculation, Harvey reckons his company loses about
he might feel like it. And when Nkalamba goes to collect his us$350,000 per year to fuel theft. “And that’s a conservative
return cargo, a load of grain, he “tips” the foreman of the load estimate,” he says.
crew to get to work straight away. Fuel theft is difficult to prove or prevent. When the
After a few days in Mozambique, it’s clear why: A truck company fitted its fuel tanks with anti-siphoning devices,
weigh station operator who got nothing kept babbling on his drivers used the breather hole instead. One reportedly even
cell phone, seemingly oblivious to the rapidly growing queue rigged his truck’s fuel supply system in such a way that it
of trucks waiting to be cleared. gradually filled a gasoline drum in the cabin while driving.
Remarkably, Nkalamba pays the various “fees” out of his It’s a cat and mouse game, and the drivers always seem to be
own pocket. They allow him to deliver his loads faster and, one step ahead. “These guys spend long hours alone on the road,”
ultimately, make more trips. The extra money earned that says Guy Fawcett, managing director of Transcom Sharaf Malawi.
way more than compensates for the cost. “They have lots of time to come up with ways to divert fuel.”
Of course there is a flipside: while speeding up the journey, But the driver is not always to blame. Nkalamba recalls
making informal payments also helps keep the system in place. a trip to Congo, when a young boy asked him to fill a small
In addition to adding expenses, they require truck drivers to Coca-Cola bottle with diesel to use for lighting at his home.
carry large amounts of cash, making them attractive targets Nkalamba took pity but quickly regretted his generosity. As
for robbers. Nkalamba says he has been lucky so far but is well the boy filled the bottle, the entire village lined up with drums
aware that he too could become a victim. “In some areas, and cans, with some of the men indicating that refusal would
villagers will throw stones at trucks and rob any driver who not be an option. He lost 500 liters of diesel that day.
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6. Unlike their employers, most drivers don’t consider fuel
Taking charge
theft a big deal. Rather, they view it as a legitimate way to help
make ends meet. The opportunity to make money on the side So what is a transportation executive to do in an
makes truck driving a popular profession in Africa. In addition environment as fickle as that of Africa? “You try to
to ferrying passengers and stealing fuel, drivers can supplement bring under your control as many factors as possible,”
their incomes by smuggling cigarettes and other goods that says Guy Harvey, CEO of Transcom Sharaf Group.
are subject to different tax levels in the countries they travel Seeing a need for a logistics company specializing in
through. A Zimbabwean trucking official tells the story of one tobacco exports, Harvey founded Transcom in 2003.
driver who made so much money with side businesses that he Until then, most tobacco exports were handled by ship-
didn’t even bother to collect his salary for more than a year. ping agents, who in turn contracted with local trucking
In order to operate in Africa, he says, you must understand companies and warehouse operators.
the local mentality. With life expectancies as low as 37 years, Harvey, by contrast, wanted to offer a total supply
many Africans live from day to day. They don’t have the luxury chain solution, a service widely available in Europe and
of long-term planning or worrying about tomorrow. In such the United States but not yet in Africa. By investing in
an environment, the certainty of earning extra money today its own trucks and warehouses, Transcom would assume
outweighs the risk of being jobless down the road. a greater share of the risk but also be able to provide
The trick, says the official, is to work the system in such a tobacco exporters a more complete—and, presumably,
way that there is enough room to steal while still allowing the more attractive—package.
trucking companies to make a profit. Universal Leaf Tobacco Co., which at the time was set-
ting up its factory in Tete, Mozambique, liked the concept
Start over again and helped finance the new company.
In the port of Beira, the journey Because new trucks would be hard to justify on Africa’s
comes to an end. Our cargo, on the punishing roads, Transcom initially purchased 70 used
other hand, has only started its long tractor-trailer combinations from operators in the United
voyage to the customer—Philip States. “Using new trucks would have added 30 percent
Morris Germany, in this case. The to our shipping rates,” explains Harvey. To keep down its
container has been booked on the spares bill, the company decided to use only one brand of
MSC Chaneca, which will take it truck: Freightliner.
to Durban, South Africa, where it will probably sit for a few But Transcom still had to create from scratch an infra-
days until it can be loaded onto a mainliner—one of those huge structure for truck maintenance, because there was none
containerships that traverse the high seas. in Malawi. With skilled labor in short supply, the company
Depending on where else the mainliner will call—Rotterdam had no choice but to train its own drivers and mechanics.
or perhaps Antwerp—the trip to Bremen can take up to four To further reduce its reliance on third parties, Transcom
weeks. leased a container facility and a 3,000-square-meter ware-
When Philip Morris’ employees finally unload the Malawi house near the Port of Beira in Mozambique.
tobacco—probably around the time you are reading this Beira was a logical choice. Already a major outlet for
article—they are unlikely to reflect on the dedicated efforts and tobacco shipments from Malawi and Mozambique, the
careful coordination that made the delivery possible.
And they shouldn’t have to.
After all, if the transportation companies are doing their
jobs well, their clients will never have a clue about the
obstacles that must be overcome to get them their tobacco.
African’s tobacco trucking companies, on the other hand,
will be scratching their heads about how to overcome the next
unforeseen obstacle, such as the aftermath of Zimbabwe’s
elections, which were scheduled for late June. Concerned
about politically motivated violence, Nkalamba says he
would like to avoid driving through Zimbabwe until the dust
in that country settles. But doing so would add hundreds
of kilometers to the journey from Malawi to South Africa,
increasing vehicle wear and fuel consumption.
So trucking executives will again be spending many hours
trying to plan for the unforeseen—only to be sideswiped by
an entirely new development. But they aren’t complaining.
This is simply what they do for a living, after all. As Harvey
points out, “The transportation business is not for sissies.”
Transcom Sharaf CEO Guy Harvey says the Beira
And nowhere does this statement ring more true than it does
warehouse provides much-needed flexibility.
in Africa. TR
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7. port is set to grow considerably as China and other emerg-
ing countries satisfy their hunger for African raw materials
and fossil fuels. Mozambique is home to some of the largest
coal deposits in the southern hemisphere.
Transcom’s business flourished and soon its Beira facility
was filled to capacity. In 2007, Sharaf Group of the United
Arab Emirates acquired a 50 percent stake in Transcom,
and the company changed its name to Transcom Sharaf.
The purchase enabled Transcom Sharaf to invest in a new
warehouse and container terminal. With storage capac-
ity of 20,000 square meters and 2,500 TEUs (twenty-foot
equivalent units), the new facility is the largest outside the
Port of Beira.
At the time of Tobacco Reporter’s visit, in June, contrac-
Transcom Sharaf’s new Beira warehouse helps customers
tors were putting the finishing touches on the warehouse,
avoid expensive storage fees in the port.
which used to be a textile factory. While the buildings were
structurally sound, Transcom Sharaf obviously needed to
make them tobacco compliant. Among other things, this
meant encasing lights in metal boxes (to prevent glass
from falling into the tobacco if a bulb were to shatter);
using tobacco-approved paints and chaining locks to doors
(again to prevent contact with stored leaf). Complying with
the lighting requirements alone cost us$450,000, partially
because all existing fixtures had to be removed.
The investments are long term, however. Not only does
the new facility allow Transcom Sharaf to avoid the port’s
high storage fees, it also offers the flexibility and indepen-
dence that Harvey desires. “We can now continue operat-
ing even if the port shuts down.”
Because tobacco is a high-value product, Transcom
Sharaf spent much time, money and effort on getting its
A “new” Transcom truck fresh off the boat from the United States
operations right. To minimize opportunities for human
error, the company installed a state-of-the-art IT system.
Among other capabilities, the system automatically allo-
cates warehouse space for incoming loads. And if a forklift
driver accidentally approaches the wrong box, the clams
simply won’t open.
“Our goal is to provide full accountability,” says Harvey.
“We’ll give customers scenarios in advance, asking, ‘If such
and such situation were to arise, who must be notified?’”
There are many other examples: When receiving tobacco,
for instance, the incoming load is automatically compared
to the ex-factory file to ensure there have been no losses in
transit. And if tobacco is financed, Transcom Sharaf can-
not clear it until it gets permission from the bank.
While some customers perceive Beira as “dirty,” Harvey
firmly believes it’s all a matter of management and proper
hygiene. To illustrate the point, he opens an empty beetle
trap. “Three weeks and not a single beetle,” says Harvey.
With its Beira facility nearing completion, Transcom
Previously a textile factory, Transcom Sharaf’s warehouse is
Sharaf is already looking ahead. Anticipating rapid growth,
now fully tobacco compliant.
the company plans to expand the warehouse by 5,000
square meters as soon as volumes justify it.
To further increase flexibility and improve its services, considering expanding into the shipping business, taking
Transcom Sharaf will invest in warehouses in Johannesburg advantage of its partnership with Sharaf Shipping.
(15,000 square meters) and Durban (12,000 square meters) Harvey believes the coming months will be crucial for
over the next 18 months. It is also planning a 10,000- Transcom Sharaf. “The company must prove itself in Beira
square-meter facility in Lilongwe. The company is even this season,” he says.—T.T.
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